Haunted house

“ For one thing father never paid his rent and so we were always living in haunted houses. Never was such a family to take the haunts out of a house. Old women riding white horses, dead men screaming, groans, cries—all were quieted when we came to live in a haunted house. ”

“ We seldom came on a prosperous-looking house but a few yards away was to be seen its aged and abandoned parent, smothered up with bushes, roof fallen in, timbers ready to collapse, the deserted hearth choked with débris and overgrown with weeds—the very picture of a haunted house. ”

“ It was easy to see that it was an avoided house—a house that was shunned by the village, to which my eye was guided by a church spire some half a mile off—a house that nobody would take. And the natural inference was, that it had the reputation of being a haunted house.
No period within the four-and-twenty hours of day and night is so solemn to me, as the early morning. In the summer-time, I often rise very early, and repair to my room to do a day’s work before breakfast, and I am always on those occasions deeply impressed by the stillness and solitude around me. ”

“ The truth is, that magazine stories and superstitious exaggerations have spoiled us for ghosts. When we hear of a haunted house, we imagine that the ghost is always on view, or that he has a benefit night, at certain fixed dates, when you know where to have him. These conceptions are erroneous, and a house may be haunted, though nothing desirable occurs in presence of the committee. ”

“ Haunted houses have proved an insuperable stumbling-block to those wiseacres who no sooner insist that superstition has died out than the familiar headline in the daily paper, “A haunted house,” stares them full in the face. It is believed that many such houses stand tenantless to-day because of the secret fear they inspire in the minds of the timid or superstitious, who, quite naturally, shrink from living under the same roof with disembodied183 spirits. It has already been noted that M. Camille Flammarion is a firm believer in haunted houses. ”

“ Not that he really believed in what the girl had said, any more than the average normal person believes in a haunted house. But even the most pronounced sceptic is conscious of a little thrill when he turns out the light in the bedroom which is popularly reputed to be the family ghost's special hunting-ground. ”

“ CHAPTER V HAUNTED PLACES That houses are haunted and apparitions frequently seen therein are pretty well established facts. The preceding chapters have dealt with this aspect of the subject, and, in view of the weight of evidence to prove the truth of the stories told in them, it would be hard for anyone to doubt that there is such a thing as a haunted house, whatever explanation maybe given of "haunting." We now turn to another division of the subject—the outdoor ghost who haunts the roadways, country lanes, and other places. ”

“ No other ghost has haunted the boy's room, my friends, since I have occupied it than the ghost of my own childhood, the ghost of my own innocence, the ghost of my own airy belief. Many a time have I pursued the phantom—never with this man's stride of mine to come up with it, never with these man's hands of mine to touch it, never more to this man's heart of mine to hold it in its purity. ”

“ Another night, they turned out again, and had a chimney-cowl off. Another night, they cut a sobbing and gulping water-pipe away. Another night, they found out something else. On several occasions, they both, in the coolest manner, simultaneously dropped out of their respective bedroom windows, hand over hand by their counterpanes, to "overhaul" something mysterious in the garden.
The engagement among us was faithfully kept, and nobody revealed anything. All we know was, if any one's room were haunted, no one looked the worse for it. ”

“ Thro' the echoing chambers crying
In the haunted house.
V.
Gazing down in her white shroud
From the edging cloud
Comes at night the dimpled moon,
Comes, and like a ghost is gone
'Neath the flying cloud
O'er the haunted house.
[Pg 114]
PERLE DES JARDINS.
What am I, and what is he
Who can cull and tear a heart,
As one might a rose for sport
In its royalty?
What am I, that he has made
All this love a bitter foam,
Blown about a life of loam
That must break and fade?
He who of my heart could make
Hollow crystal where his face
Like a passion had its place
Holy and then break! ”

“ I hold that there is in every human breast a dread of the supernatural, and though I do not by any means believe in ghosts, I would certainly prefer not to live in a house where they are supposed to dwell. Still, I dared not tell Herbert so, and, consequently, I only laughed at the idea of a haunted house, saying, it was very romantic. ”

“ I cannot stop to analyze the sensation with which I crossed the threshold of this mystery-haunted house, and entered the quaint, old-fashioned parlor, where the supper table was set. The polished oak floor, the oak-paneled walls, the high, narrow, deep-set windows, the tall, black-walnut chimney-piece over the broad fireplace, flanked by a high cupboard in one corner, and a coffinlike clock in the other—all whispered of those who had lived and died there long years before. ”

“ Such are the ordinary or typical phenomena of haunted houses. It is plainly of no use to take a haunted house for a month and then say it is not haunted because you see no ghosts. Even where they have been seen there are breaks of years without any ‘manifestations’. Besides, the evidence shows that it is not every one who can see a ghost when he is there: Miss Morton’s father could not see the lady in black, when she was visible to Miss Morton.
It is difficult to write with perfect seriousness about haunted houses. ”

“ CHAPTER XX HAUNTED HOUSES—"CASTEL A MARE"
I have never yet met any one who was not interested in haunted houses. Even the most blatant skeptic always wants to "hear all about it," though he has predetermined to treat the story with his habitual scoffing incredulity. Of all the departments of psychical research none commands more general interest than a "spooky" house, and there are few people who cannot name a dwelling which has acquired the reputation for being haunted by denizens of the other world. ”

“ Opening from the enclosed courtyard, which now forms a great frescoed hall in the centre of this house of Wallington, are endless suites of huge rooms, only partly carpeted and thinly furnished with ugly last-century furniture, partly covered with faded tapestry. The last of these is 'the ghost-room,' and Wallington is still a haunted house: awful noises are heard all through the night ”

“ What does the spectre in the tapestried chamber do when the house is not full, and no guest is put in the room to bury strangers in, the haunted room? Does the ghost sulk and complain that there is “no house,” and refuse to rehearse his little performance, in a conscientious and disinterestedly artistic spirit, when deprived of the artist’s true pleasure, the awakening of sympathetic emotion in the mind of the spectator? We give too little thought and sympathy to ghosts, who in our old castles and country houses often find no one to appear to from year’s end to year’s-end. ”

“ On a moonlight night an impressionable girl passing the house could readily have seen the ghost of a woman’s form leaning imploringly39 from the belvedere—one girl did see it, and not even her later confession that the ghost was a fabric of moonbeams has been sufficient to rid the building of its name—The Haunted House. ”

“ A weird fancy, sporting with the facts detected by a keen observation, gives to every gable of the Seven Gables, every room in the House, every burdock growing rankly before the door, a symbolic significance. The queer mansion is haunted,—haunted with thoughts which every moment are liable to take ghostly shape. ”

“ Manly, upon account of the mysterious noises that nightly disturbed her rest, found it impossible to live in the house.
The cottage remained idle for some weeks, and then was taken by another family, who stayed ten days, then vanished—whispering the same cause for their abandonment of the premises.
The excitement of the neighborhood increased. There was nothing talked of but the haunted house. Large parties visited the spot during daylight, who, after the most curious investigation, found nothing unusual about the looks of the place. ”

“ Again, the phenomena occurring in “haunted houses” (whether caused, or not, by imposture or hallucination, or both) were easily magnified into such legends as that of Grettir and Glam, and into the monstrosities of the witch trials. Once more the simple hallucination of a dead person’s appearance in his house demanded an explanation. This was easily given by evolving a legend that he was a spirit, escaped from purgatory or the grave, to fulfil a definite purpose. The rarity of such purposeful ghosts in an age like ours, so rich in ghost stories, must have a cause. ”

“ No cheap, common house can be a haunted house. Ghosts like good architecture, especially when it has become pretty antique, and they have a passion for neglected door-yards. The place lacked nothing that I could see to make it attractive to even the most fastidious wandering wraith. As I say, I think this was not my first impression, but certainly it was about the next one, and I could see by her face that it was Elizabeth's.
"Place wants trimming up," said Mr. Westbury, producing a big brass key, "and the house needs some work on it, but the frame is as sound as ever it was. ”

“ This is usually the case in so-called haunted houses; no matter who lives within them, they one and all see the spectral forms; but this is not invariably so. In the case of the “Great Amherst Mystery,” for example—given below—the haunting seemed to be associated with the person more than the house, so that we might be said to have here a case of a Haunted Man (or Woman) . But this is the exception, not the rule.
The cases that follow are all well-attested; and the phenomena have been witnessed by many persons. ”

“ Memory is a rare ghost-raiser. Like a haunted house, its walls are ever echoing to unseen feet. Through the broken casements we watch the flitting shadows of the dead, and the saddest shadows of them all are the shadows of our own dead selves. ”

“ I have even known an instance where this type of person has, through trickery, actually gained access to some notoriously haunted house, and from its owners—the family he has long had his eyes on, from a motive anything but psychic—has ferreted out the secret and private history of the haunting. ”

“ All the people in the town think that our house is haunted. They say that old Customs Officer Borgen, who used to own the house and who has been dead for many, many years is the ghost that haunts it.
The house is awfully old, with a tremendously long sloping roof, a big garret, lots of closets and poke-holes under the eaves, and a pitch-dark hall with unexpected steps, over which people who don’t know about them tumble head over heels. ”

“ A haunted house (or any other locality) is merely a place where experience shows that hallucinations are more or less localised, and the only especially interesting question about it is, why the hallucinations should be localised at a particular place, and what causes them there.
Such Phantasms of the Living have been discussed in the monumental work of Mr. Myers and the late Mr. E. Gurney. They need be no further remarked upon here, than to observe that the following pages contain at least one example, viz. that of the apparition of the Rev. P. H——. ”

“ For every haunted house there must, of course, be an invisible intruder who comes only in the small hours, when the effects of its unwelcome presence would, of course, be most terrifying to weak nerves. But it is to be remarked that we hear nothing nowadays of the old-time, hair-raising, blood-curdling ghost whose coming forebode something terrible about to happen, or who had some awful revelation to make. That type of ghost has184 passed away. The modern ghost never makes set speeches in a sepulchral voice or leaves a palpable smell of brimstone behind. ”

“ There is the theory that the figures seen in houses of this nature are genuine, outstanding entities—real beings, which are just as real, though less solid and tangible, as any of the living inhabitants of the house. This is, of course, the popular conception of the ghosts seen in haunted houses, and it must be admitted that such a theory covers and explains the facts more completely and fully than any other. There are also many facts telling in its favor. For instance, when two persons see a figure from different angles or viewpoints ”

“ I paid for my week, and too happy were my wife and I to get off so cheaply."
"You excite my curiosity," said I; "nothing I should like better than to sleep in a haunted house. Pray give me the address of the one which you left so ignominiously." ”

“ It’s a proof that one has pure blood in one’s veins. But, egad, now we’re talking of ghosts, there never was a house or a night better fitted than the present for a ghost adventure. Faith, Sir John, haven’t you such a thing as a haunted chamber to put a guest in?”
“Perhaps,” said the Baronet, smiling, “I might accommodate you even on that point.”
“Oh, I should like it of all things, my jewel. Some dark oaken room, with ugly wo-begone portraits that stare dismally at one, and about which the housekeeper has a power of delightful stories of love and murder. ”

“ The ghost of a dead-and-gone bouquet,
Is all that tells of her story; yet
Could she think of a sweeter way?
I sit in the sad old house to-night—
Myself a ghost from a farther sea;
And I trust that this Quaker woman might,
In courtesy, visit me.
For the laugh is fled from the porch and lawn,
And the bugle died from the fort on the hill,
And the twitter of girls on the stairs is gone,
And the grand piano is still.
Somewhere in the darkness a clock strikes two ”